Another Muse
When Dad died, he left me a house and a chocolate lab named Anabelle. Despite her being good company, I was depressed. My therapist said painting might help, so I started doing landscapes out back. Yet I could only see the rot in oaks Dad had planted years before. I wanted to try figure painting instead, but my girlfriend would neither sit still nor take off her clothes. So I started painting Anabelle, using her as a canvas. She was reluctant at first—until I bought edible paints. Suddenly, an intense cycle of creation began. Anabelle was daubed first blue, next yellow, then green, before returning to her original brown. While she was getting chunky, I had to admit my therapist was right. My shoulders loosened. I started sleeping through the night. My work grew bolder, and I experimented with magenta stripes on Anabelle, followed by cerulean spots atop mauve. Then one day, I decked her out in cherry red and off-white. She resembled a 1959 Corvette, like the one Dad used to drive when I was a boy. She was perfect, and I resolved I would paint her no more. My girlfriend said, “Won’t you get depressed again?” I said, “Maybe we can make some kids for me to paint.” She said, “How about we get you a cat?” I said, “No, Anabelle wouldn’t like that. And we must respect her wishes. She has given so much to art.” Just then, as if she knew we were talking about her, Anabelle trotted into the room. With an air of acceptance, she settled at our feet and began to lick herself clean. Dad would have been proud of her.
Part of a Sudden
We soon got used to it going from bad to worse and I learned not to be
so surprised by the latest upside-down headline that I disgorged a mouthful
of morning coffee in shock— like someone in a sitcom— ruining every other
page of the daily paper I needed to scour for a few lines of hope.
Champion Tree
If you fell me, you will be lost between countless rings. If you uproot me, you will make a wound your science has no power to heal. The legacy of the original garden your kind had no hand in making courses through my veins. Back then, my fingers were fewer than those on your two tiny hands, too stubby yet to tickle clouds. Back then, my knotted shadow stood straight and slim, like lines you draw across the planet, slicing it to pieces. Back then, we were legion. Our swishing leaves filled the air with songs in a language not shaped for any tongue but made for every ear. We were loud enough to remind everyone time can be kept without a clock.
Noel Sloboda is the author of two books of poetry as well as seven chapbooks. He has also published a monograph about Edith Wharton and Gertrude Stein. Sloboda teaches at Penn State York, where he coordinates the English program.